Lottery games have become a time honored method of raising revenue for state and federal governments the world over. Traditional scratch-off and draw games have evolved over decades, supplying increasing revenue year after year. However, after decades of growth, the sales curves associated with traditional games seem to be flattening out. This flattening of lottery sales curves is typically attributed to a fixed base of consumers that routinely purchase lottery products with very few new consumers choosing to participate in the lottery marketplace. Various analyses of state lottery sales data tend to support the hypothesis that lotteries rely heavily on an existing consumer base and more specifically on lottery “super users.” Three states (Rhode Island, South Dakota and Massachusetts) had 2014 lottery sales that topped $700 per capita. While ten states had per capita sales below $100, per capita sales for all state lotteries averaged almost $250. Demographically speaking, this existing base of lottery consumers is aging with younger consumers showing very little interest in participating in existing lottery offerings. Thus, the potential for ever-increasing lottery sales is increasingly problematic with the existing fixed base of consumers saturated. Consequently, both lotteries and their service providers are presently searching for more marketable forms of gaming that would appeal to a broader consumer base.
In addition to flattening sales, a static lottery consumer base is often cited as exploiting problem gamblers with various legislatures debating restrictions or probations being placed on lotteries. For example, the “Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation”, which advocates an end to state-sponsored gambling recently stated: “In Minnesota, a pending bipartisan bill would require 25% of lottery billboards to be dedicated to a warning about the odds of winning, cautions about addiction, and information on where problem gamblers can seek help.”
In an attempt to diversify their base and increase sales, United States lotteries have come to appreciate the virtues of producing games with more entertainment value that can be sold at a premium price. For instance, ten-dollar instant ticket games with higher paybacks and more ways to win now account for over $5 billion a year in United States lottery sales. However, these premium games are typically displayed in standard instant ticket dispensers behind the glass of the retailer counter next to the lower priced more mundane instant ticket offerings with very little visual differentiation between the standard and premium instant tickets. Thus, while these higher-priced and higher-payout premium games offer a different gaming experience that may appeal to a different player demographic, there is little to differentiate these enhanced games from the standard offering, especially for a casual consumer. To date, attempts have been made to differentiate premium games a with larger ticket sizes (e.g., six by four inches) and in some cases holographic foil substrates, as well as fluorescent and metallic inks. However, these methods come at a high production cost with arguably very little product differentiation for a new or casual consumer.
But by their nature, high-volume, generic, higher priced instant games are a minor part of overall game offerings and although they have their place, they have limited potential for assisting in consumer base diversification. The higher-priced and high-volume nature of these games tends to drive the lotteries to generic (i.e., proven) type of play (i.e., appealing to existing player base) with very little experimentation possible. Lastly, these higher priced and high-volume games also typically add little unique entertainment value relative to lower priced instant tickets and consequently, do not attract many new consumers.
This phenomenon of a relatively small percentage of the population responsible for a large majority of lottery sales is partially due to the commoditization of lottery tickets by ticket manufacturers. In the past decade, manufacturers of instant lottery tickets have developed techniques which enabled fixed plate produced color images to be printed as display and on top of (i.e., overprinted on) the scratch-off layers. Using this conventional printing method, the display and overprint images are stationary and do not change from one printing impression to the next during a single printing run—e.g., the overprint cards and methods disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,512 and the overprint lottery tickets and methods disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,647. This, in turn, confines the instant lottery ticket product to high-volume print runs with very little experimentation in terms of theming and gaming experience due to the need to ensure that the vast majority of print runs sells out to be economically feasible. Therefore, these high-volume print runs tend to be themed around well-established concepts that have been developed over years principally designed to exploit “super users.”
Lottery ticket production involves variable information or indicia when designing the play styles and prize payout functions of the games. It is impractical to meet these requirements using conventional plate printing techniques such as flexographic printing to produce game play and validation information in the security areas hidden by the Scratch-Off Coating (SOC) of tickets. Far too many plate changes would be required to produce the vast amount of variable indicia in the security areas to complete a run of large volumes of tickets, rendering plate printing for this purpose not viable. Thus, to date almost all lottery ticket variability has been confined to monochromatic variable indicia or two-spot color variable indicia imaged by drop-on-demand ink jet printers with the display and overprints being mostly static from game to game.
While there has been some industry effort to advance instant lottery ticket printing technology with full color digital imaging (most notably: US patent application publication Nos. US 2010/0253063 and US 2012/0267888), most of this effort has focused primarily on providing color digital imaging exclusively on variable win or lose indicia. In these embodiments ticket display, overprint, and backs are printed with traditional fixed plate methods. Thus, make ready (i.e., press set-up) time and expense are not reduced and arguably increased for tickets disclosed in all of these cited patent applications. Furthermore, the economics of press run lengths (i.e., long press runs required to offset the preparation costs—a.k.a. “make ready”) is not changed and require high-volume print runs with these embodiments, thereby once again restricting experimentation in terms of theming and gaming experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,074,570 discloses: “ . . . multi-colour, (sic.) variable imaging of the graphics . . . applied to both the game area and non-game areas of the (lottery instant) ticket.” (Column 2, lines 22-23) “ . . . The variable image printing system used for the application of the game data is a different system from the variable image printing system used for the graphic areas over the play and non-play areas of the ticket. These are distinct systems although the technology is similar.” (Column 2, lines 26-30). In a second embodiment as taught by the '570 patent, the different system for printing or partially printing the graphic areas over the play and non-play areas of the ticket is at a different location (column 2, line 65). Thus, while the '570 patent teaches potential elimination of fixed plate display and overprint printing for lottery tickets with a corresponding reduction in make ready time and expense, it only achieves this reduction by introducing a second imaging system that is not inline with the first and may be located in a different geographical area entirely. Therefore, any costs savings in make ready will be more than consumed with the additional labor and logistics associated with printing tickets on two different imaging systems. As a consequence, the economics of press run lengths is again not changed and the resulting high-volume print runs once again restrict experimentation in terms of theming and gaming experience.
Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) International patent application publications WO 2009/062297 and WO 2010/130041 attempt to address this problem by teaching that a general-purpose off-the-shelf color digital imager (e.g., Hewlett-Packard HPT300 color ink jet web press) can be utilized to create full color indicia for instant tickets. However, the '297 and '041 publications envision the off-the-shelf color digital imager as a stand-alone unit with the web substrate being pre- or post-processed by separate printing stations (e.g., flexographic) to print the required security and scratch-off ink films. Additionally, in the embodiments of the '297 and '041 publications, the same web substrate is rolled and unrolled multiple times first to apply the lower security ink film layers, then to apply the digital imaged variable indicia, and finally to apply the scratch-off coatings and upper ink film security layers. This repeated rolling and unrolling of the web substrate has the disadvantages of substantially increasing production costs due to labor as well as substantially increasing the waste rates of the system. While not explicitly stated in the '297 and '041 publications, detached (i.e., not inline) implementation of an off-the-shelf color digital imager is probably the only practical method of implementation due to the nature of the web motion through these types of offset digital printing devices. In order to achieve multiple colors printing, these digital printers physically halt the web momentarily while their offset roller acquires multiple colors. Only when the offset roller is inked with all of the desired colors and ink applications is the ink applied directly to the web with the web moving forward one offset roller rotation. While aggregate digital imager speeds of 100 FPM (Feet Per Minute) are often quoted, the quoted speeds are actually average velocities with the web physically stopping and starting multiple times, thus again the labor and logistics costs of processing instant tickets on multiple press lines becomes prohibitive. Therefore, as a practical matter, if multiple digital imagers are integrated inline the maximum web speed is the processing speed of the slowest imager assuming all inline imagers ink their respective offset rollers in perfect synchronization. Thus, again production is limited to higher-volume print runs restricting experimentation in terms of theming and gaming experience.
In addition to instant scratch-off tickets, pull-tab game pieces (i.e., a tear open game of chance where the player typically opens the perforated windows on the back of the pull-tab game piece by pulling off the pull-tab and matches the symbols inside the opened windows to the winning combinations on the front of the pull-tab game piece for a potential monetary or other prize) have traditionally been printed with fixed plate printing processes using at least two different substrates—i.e., one substrate for the front and back pull-tab game piece variable win or lose variable indicia and the other substrate for the perforated window covering the back variable indicia. The printing process has traditionally been to use fixed plate offset or flexographic presses with the printed substrates containing the variable indicia, covered by the second substrate and then the completed pull tabs are physically shuffled, such that the winning pull-tab game pieces could no longer be identified by their position in the stack. While barcodes have been added to pull-tab game pieces, the traditional (i.e., fixed plate) printing process and associated shuffle are still predominating in the industry. This printing process is expensive and labor intensive and greatly limits experimentation in terms of theming and gaming experience.
An attempt to mitigate this highly manual pull-tab production process, U.S. Pat. No. 6,543,808 disclosed pull-tab game pieces produced with direct thermal imaging and a precut opaque covering. However, this construction has the disadvantage of higher overall costs due to the complexity of the substrates and associated custom machinery at the point of sale, as well as the loss of esthetics and consequently marketing by monochromatic imaging.
Thus, it is highly desirable to develop instant ticket and/or multiple substrate printing platforms that provide methods of generating new gaming opportunities, particularly more customized and consequently smaller volume games. Ideally this printing platform should provide full color imaging for variable indicia, display, and overprints, as well as to accommodate smaller print runs, thereby allowing for flexibility and creativity for game designers to tailor games to a wide variety of small targeted segments heretofore not served by existing gaming offerings, thereby appealing to a broader base of consumers.